It gave us rather a queer feeling to hear the grackle grackle, But when it got to be winter time he got up and went thence And now we shall never know, though we watch the tree till April, Whether his curious crying ever made song or sense. _Carl Sandburg_ (Striking from time to time a few notes on a mouth-organ, with a wonderful effect of human brotherhood which does not quite include the East.) CHICAGO MEMORIES Grackles, trees-- I been thinkin' 'bout 'em all: I been thinkin' they're all right: Nothin' much--Gosh, nothin' much against God, even. _God made little apples_, a hobo sang in Kankakee, Shattered apples, I picked you up under a tree, red wormy apples, I ate you.... That lets God out. There were three green birds on the tree, there were three wailing cats against a green dawn.... 'Gene Field sang, "The world is full of a number of things," 'Gene Field said, "When they caught me I was living in a tree...." 'Gene Field said everything in Chicago of the eighties. Now he's dead, I say things, say 'em well, too.... 'Gene Field ... back in the lost days, back in the eighties, Singing, colyumning ... 'Gene Field ... forgotten ... Back in Arkansaw there was a green bird, too, I can remember how he sang, back in the lost days, back in the eighties. Uncle Yon Swenson under the tree chewing slowly, slowly.... Memories, memories! There are only trees now, no 'Gene, no eighties Gray cats, I can feel your fur in my heart ... Green grackle, I remember now, Back in the lost days, back in the eighties The cat ate you. [Illustration] _Edith M. Thomas_ (She tells a friend in confidence, after she is safely out of it all.) FROST AND SANDBURG TONIGHT Apple green bird on a wooden bough, And the brazen sound of a long, loud row, And "Child, take the train, but mind what you do-- Frost, tonight, and Sandburg too!" Then I sally forth, half wild, half cowed, Till I come to the surging, impervious crowd, The wine-filled, the temperance, the sober, the pied, The Poets that cover the countryside! The Poets I never would meet till tonight! A gleam of their eyes in the fading light, And I took them all in--the enormous throng-- And with one great bound I bolted along. * * * * * If the garden had merely held birds and flowers! But I hear a voice--they have talked for hours-- "Frost tonight--" if 'twere merely he! Half wild, half cowed, I flee, I flee! _Charles Hanson Towne_ (Who rather begrudged the time he used up in going out to the suburbs.) THE UNQUIET SINGER